MEAPsoft works by (a) segmenting original audio up into individual beats or events, (b) calculating some features for each segment, and (c) matching or rearranging segments from one or more pieces to create a new piece of music.

MEAPsoft comes with a wide and increasing range of feature extraction routines, and algorithms for matching and rearranging the segments (called “composers”). MEAPsoft is written in Java, and makes it pretty easy to write your own feature extractors and composers.

“Lexikon-Sonate is an interactive realtime composition environment for musical composition and live performances. It takes advantage of composition algorithms that has been developed by Karlheinz Essl since 1985. With this algorithmic music generator on can easily create fascinating and complex musical structures on the fly. Furthermore, Lexikon-Sonate is an infinite music installation that can run on a computer for years without repeating itself. Finally, Lexikon-Sonate can be used as an instrument for live performance of electronic music.”

“Students of music composition can explore algorithmic composition, while others can create musical representations of models for the purpose of aural interpretation and analysis. Here, the algorithmic process is used in a creative context so that users can convert sequences of numbers into sounds.”